Date: April 22, 2024

Today is our first day of golf in Japan this year. There is only 3 of us – 3 of the most fierce drinkers in our golf group a.k.a Crazy Alcoholics (as in the WhatsApp group chat).

It is also special because, it is Ken Takahashis-san’s (Middle) first golf game in his home country. Before that he has no experience in playing golf in Japan. That means we have to teach him to wear sport jacket to enter a Japanese golf club house, golf hat need to hang outside restaurant, must clean wash and blow your shoe before enter back to club house, cannot walk naked from the locker to the shower area, etc etc.

As it is approaching end of Sakura season, you can see along the way the road turns pinky. Very nice scenery.

We finally arrived at Fuji Hakone Country Club. This is the club where every hole you can see Mt. Fuji. But unfortunately because of the typhoon, we probably won’t see Mt Fuji today. It was drizzling, foggy and the wind is blowing very hard.

Our tee off time is 10:12am and we are quite early to reach the clubhouse. Let’s drink beer and hot sake to warm our body ya!

At 9:30am the fogs are still very thick. But the wind does its job blowing it away. A bit drizzling.

Wow, at 10am we start to see hopes. The sky getting clearer, wind blew the clouds and fogs away.

The first thing when I arrived at the clubhouse is to immediately hunt for a wind breaker jacket. So I got this wind breaker at 4300 yen. Also as recommended by Raymond, I bought the golf hat for 2000+ yen. It was fantastic! It not only keeps my head warm, it is well fitted over my head and the strong wind are not able to blow it away. you can flip the front part down so that your glasses are partly shielded from the drizzling rain.

10:12am, let’s start! In Japan, there is only one caddie in every flight (if you can booked one). We were greeted by caddie and here we go.

Notice that white snow man? That’s Takahasi-san. He scares of cold. Protect both body and legs like he is going skiing.

Don’t forget to listen to the wind blowing… very strong… feels like we are in St Andrew’s and fighting with the wind on every shot.

Raymond leads the first tee off!

Takahashis first ever tee shot on Japan soil. He later par the first 2 holes.

Three happy golfers taking break from work, one lawyer, one build data centers and the other sell telecom bandwidth.

The golf course is so pleasant, you can see mountains covered by clouds, you can see the sea, you can see the fairway both side are nice and tall matured pine trees, occasionally cherry blossom trees too.

Good shot! Taka!!

Oh ya… I bought this Truss model of spider putter. Yeap, it’s my 4th Spider. And I am using it today.

It is truss model only available in Japan. When you put it on the flat ground, the shaft lays in a pleasant angle for you to hold so that you can see the ball and ball path much better during back swing.

We spent almost two hours in Golf Partner. It is the shop where you can order second hand golf equipment. Of course they selling new equipment too. I got myself a truss model Spider. Takahashi bought a Stealth driver, a 60° SM9 wedge and a Scotty putter too. Raymond ordered 8 equipments from all over Japan and we will come back to pick it up 5 days later.

Of course there is a Golf Partner shop on Singapore but they charging S$35 for every shipment. So that’s the reason why you come to Japan and buy.

Let’s get back to the golf game. Taka just pared first two holes and then he hits this.

Hole-3. Showing you guys the golf course.

We finally see some Sakura flowers along the holes. Yeah…

In Japan there usually have an half way house in every nine holes. Here we stock up our Highballs and alcoholic drinks.

Wow.. this is quite warm drink.

While you take a 10min rest, you can dry your gloves for 6min with this amazing dryer for gloves.

Cheers man! Me with my highball.

Just refilled with alcohol, every one is hitting good shots.

The wind is still blowing very strong. Look at Taka’s white pants see how the wind is blowing his pants? And also listen to the video audio, that’s the wind blowing sound.

Take a look at the water puddle inside the sand bunker. It is crystal clear ya! Only in Japan. Hahaha

Now this is crazy. The clouds or the fogs just covered our front path. We have no idea where to hit, no idea how our ball lands, etc. and the wind is still blowing very strong.

Let’s see how he do. No problem at all 大丈夫です!

Before 9-holes end I have consumed almost three cans of beer under this severe cold weather.

AThe fogs is lovely ya. We still managed to play our ball.

Lunch time! In Japan, no matter what time you tee off you will have a 45min or 1hr long break where you can take your time to clean your shoe, put your jacket, gloves and hat into the dryer, and have nice lunch at the club house.

After our lunch we tee off at 13:25.

The sun came out and the weather become fantastic. look at the occasionally the wind blows the fog or the sands in front of Taka.

Raymond had a good tee off too.

Here is the group photo under the good weather.

The view is nice. You can see the sea.

Oh in Japan all the buggy is remote controlled following the golf path.

See no driver no hands hahhaha the caddie went to a lookout hut so that she can see where our ball hit to.

Taka tee off from hole 11 where we cannot see where the ball lands. Caddie has to go to a hut on the right and place the white flag to signal us it’s safe to hit. And she then will watch from that watch tower.

Next Raymond also hit to the left.

This got to be my favorite hole. I hit it straight and far.

Take a look at this hole 11. It is so amazingly pretty.

Caddie even prepare fish food for Raymond to feed the Koi fish.

Oh what a nice red leaf. I am bringing it back.

Must be rich people house up there.

The weather getting nicer and nicer.

At hole no 14. Guess where is our club house?

A good shot but big slice.

But the wind is blowing so strong.

Overall we love this course. But because we have not seen any Mt Fuji, we will definitely come back again.

I lost 4 balls. Have 4 pars. And this is the first day. And I miss so many putts too. The green is semi-hard for me. But the putter is good. You have to asked where the sea direction is to find out the green is against you or not against you. Hahhaa

We will played better in the coming golf games hopefully.